Motoring mood is lounge or light

Ritzy harbourside apartments have it. So do art galleries and flash restaurants, and it is being touted as the Next Big Thing in cars. It is mood lighting.

Motoring mood is lounge or light

09 November 2003Bob Jennings

Advances in multiplexing, fibre optics and light-emitting diodes (LEDs), including a substantial cost reduction, are leading car designers to create "moods" for cars – or even a choice of moods in the same car.

Ambient lighting with no apparent source has come to expensive production cars such as DaimlerChrysler's flagship Maybach, and the trend is moving to the middle market.

"It started out with interior lights that dimmed when the doors were closed; it was a dramatic effect which had an air of quality," said Ford's Asia-Pacific design director, Simon Butterworth.

"BMW achieved a strong effect with downlighting which illuminated its centre console, and the latest Audi A8 has illumination with a hidden source which comes through the interior door panels."

This was an exciting field for designers, who could exploit the heatless transmission of light through fibre optics and the dramatically cheaper LED systems.

The retiring design chief of General Motors, Wayne Cherry, is on the same wavelength. He told the Detroit Free Press that current technology – in terms of lighting and multiplexing – enabled makers to move mood lighting into the mainstream.

"In any building or house or any environment," he says, "the light quality – the warmness or coolness of the light, the indirectness of the light and how it is applied to the surroundings – is critical. It changes how people feel about things, it changes your whole perspective."

Multiplexing sends multiple signals or streams of information on a carrier (wire, wireless or fibre optic) simultaneously in the form of a single, complex signal and separates the signals at the receiving end.

Such systems weigh little, are compact and highly versatile, and are controlled electronically so there is no hardware to deteriorate with use. The energy use is low and they carry out a wide range of functions.

At September's Frankfurt Motor Show, Citroen went over the top with the Airlounge concept in which armrests were packed with red LEDs and the cloth trim on the doors was lit from behind by optic fibres showing various designs including the Citroen logo.